


Reunion Refracted

by TheSpectralDuke



Series: Misadventures [5]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst and Porn, Cunnilingus, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, NSFW, No Faerie Tale Endings Here, Not Beta Read, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:14:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27737461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSpectralDuke/pseuds/TheSpectralDuke
Summary: In faerie tales, the brave knight rescues their beloved from evil's clutches and they go home to a happy ending. Gerlind Sterne finds herself torn between love and hate instead.(Major spoilers for the ending of 5.0, also while this is in Misadventures 'canon' it's more of a standalone piece)
Relationships: G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light
Series: Misadventures [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1938301
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	Reunion Refracted

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to all the kind souls at the bookclub for their support, I hope you all enjoy this food.

The Crystarium rang with celebration beneath a perfect night sky with not a cloud in sight. Of course it would be so perfect, Gerlind Sterne thought, accepting another clap on her shoulder, another glass of wine, another tankard of mead, another handful of nibbles. Lit by lamps and stars and the ever-present glow of the Crystal Tower, the people had much and more to celebrate. The end of eternal daylight, the lasting death of each and every Lightwarden. The turn of Eulmore back to something close to righteousness after however long of decadent hedonism. The return of their beloved Exarch from a prison beneath the sea.

The final defeat of the Ascian Emet-Selch. Nay, of _Hades_.

“ _Remember. Remember us. Remember that we once lived.”_

She couldn't help but frown at the memory of his parting smile even bells later, a draught of mead trying to hide it from inquiring eyes. In the faerie tales, the brave knight delved into the villain's lair, slew the evil and brought their beloved home. But she found herself pitying the villain and bitterly conflicted about her 'lover', trying to drown her feelings in drink for a time, trying to play her part as the Warrior of Light always did. As the Warrior of Darkness she would do the same. Smile because a smile better suits a hero, drink and cheer and pretend all was well even while she boiled away inside.

With battle done and her paladin's plate stained in Hades's blood she had quickly changed into a gown the Mean's weavers had seen fit to give her with not a thought given to her returning it. “Keep it, Warrior of Darkness,” they had said, and so Gerlind wore a suitably black dress over dusky skin, a surprisingly good fit but then the armorer had had her measurements to pass on, she supposed. It clung well to her, dark veils loose down from shoulders to elbows, the chest cut to what they assured her was a tasteful depth but which seemed rather prudish to her. Her curly hair hung passably coifed, though she had done little more than stand under a steaming shower and then make a brief attempt to neaten it out of politeness more than anything.

The Scions had started close to her side when the festivities began but as the night drew on they had naturally scattered. A glance across the glass-domed hall found Thancred leaned against a pillar, keeping a distant but watchful eye on Ryne as the girl talked to a cluster of other children. Gerlind shared a little smile with the white-haired gunbreaker at the sight across the room, Twelve knew his ward could use some normal chatter after all she'd been through.

Urianger and Moren exchanged words another distance away. When she'd last passed close enough to hear Moren had seemed quite intrigued by Urianger's knowledge of the fae, knowledge the elezen was more than happy to share over their drinks judging by how they still chattered away. Meanwhile Alphinaud and Alisaie were surrounded by admirers cooing over them, apparently a few visitors from Eulmore had come to pay their regards to “the artist Alphinaud and his talented assistants”, much to Alisaie's chagrin. Gerlind swallowed a laugh as the red mage seethed, her tankard finished and immediately replaced by a glass.

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” she asked wryly with a look at the waitress.

“Tis a night for it, Warrior of Darkness,” the mystel shrugged with a chuckle, one that Gerlind returned with a hollow heart as the woman carried on. Aye, it should have been. But where she should have felt triumph at slaying a villain, she felt nothing but bitter regret, and where she should have been happy to have an old friend, an old _lover_ back from his fate, she instead felt like the Exarch's crystal fingers dug deep into her heart. Drink might have been a welcome escape but she couldn't surrender to the atmosphere, the feelings in her breast refusing to lay still and sleep even for an evening.

Would you forgive so quickly, she called into the depths of her mind. If either of the voices in her head heard her, they had no answer to offer.

“Is the Warrior of Darkness tired of congratulatory drinks?” Y'shtola purred in amusement. Gerlind turned to face the seeker of the sun, finding her with glass in hand and a grin on her lips.

“As if,” Gerlind retorted, forcing a smirk as she downed a little more wine. Y'shtola's smile twitched up a fraction.

“I'm surprised not to find the Exarch at your side, actually,” she mused, swirling her drink around the glass in thought. “Or should I be calling him G'raha Tia now?” Behind her smile Gerlind's thoughts darkened. That same question hung rather more coldly in her mind. Raha, the Exarch, whichever name she used he had spent a little time close once they returned and the celebrations started, but then he had been swept away by Chessamile for a 'full inspection' against his protests. That had been bells ago and Gerlind was sure she'd seen Chessamile in the crowd since.

“Chessamile wanted to be sure he had no lasting injuries,” the highlander shrugged, aware Y'shtola awaited some answer.

“He _did_ spend some time with an enemy intent on wresting secrets out of his head, and for all his good manners I doubt Emet-Selch would have extended such courtesy under those circumstances,” her fellow Scion mused. That same thought had passed through Gerlind's own mind, not helped by how worn and bedraggled the Exarch had looked standing on that rock in the void.

“I wanted to speak with him,” the Warrior of Darkness murmured.

Y'shtola cocked an eyebrow curiously, doubtless wondering what exactly about. “I doubt you have any particular wish to know what exactly Emet-Selch put him through, so I assume you have more personal motives, Gerlind.” Undoubtedly, the highlander seethed internally. You didn't _know_ Raha, not the way I did.

None of you knew him the way I did. He was a fellow student to you, if that. She hated how bitter the thoughts sounded, those confused feelings bleeding her hatred into words directed at someone else entirely. She _had_ to settle it.

“Yes,” the highlander said, forcing her voice flat even though that only made Y'shtola stare at her more intently. She wondered sometimes just how close to true vision the miqo'te's aether sight was, whether Y'shtola could still see the smallest pieces of body language and shifts in expression or if such fine detail was lost to her.

“I shan't pry if you do not wish to share,” the white-haired seeker replied, taking a sip of wine and smiling when she lowered her glass. “Emet-Selch and the Exarch have given you much and more to mull over, undoubtedly, but I do hope you find some enjoyment tonight. Bittersweet it might be in some ways, but this _is_ a victory, Gerlind.”

“I'll try,” Gerlind said with another forced smile, staring after Y'shtola once she moved on. Again she was left with drink and tangled thoughts, watching the miqo'te approach Thancred and exchange words with him a while. Her glass emptied slower than the last, her head beginning to cloud, and when another was offered she instead asked for and received water.

“Has the Warrior of Darkness had her fill of liquor?” Lyna's voice made her jump startled, she had been regarding Ryne and letting the girl's smile try to wash her bitter feelings away. “Forgive me for creeping up on you.”

“No, no, I was malms away,” Gerlind waved her concern off. “It feels strange to relax after so long on edge, is all.” It was a lie born of truth at least, she had felt so disconcerted whenever the latest in her line of threats was ended and she could do naught but wait for the next to come strolling into her path. The primals followed by van Baelsar followed by Teledji Adeledji and Lolorito followed by Nidhogg, on and on it went until she arrived at Emet-Selch. Mayhap she was tired of slaughtering a never-ending queue of foes and that was why she had found herself hoping to pass the Ascian's strange trial.

Would that she had. What then?

“You have earned your respite, undoubtedly,” the viis smiled with a salute. “I thought you might be glad to know that the Exarch has been given a clean bill of health by Chessamile and that he awaits in the Ocular should you wish to see him.” There was a little frown on her lips and Gerlind could hazard a guess at why.

Why would you _not_ want to see him, she imagined the viis thinking.

“Thank you, Lyna,” she replied, draining the last of her water. “Are you going to enjoy the celebration?” She noticed that the silver-haired woman still wore her full mail, her chakrams at her belt.

Lyna smiled. “Mayhap later in the evening. Joyous as the day as and few as our enemies are now, I wish to be certain before I relax in full.”

Gerlind chuckled and took a glass of wine from the waiter who made a beeline toward her. Immediately she passed it to Lyna, waving the waiter away before he could hand her another. “Courtesy of the Warrior of Darkness, and if you don't drink it I'll be offended, Lyna,” she teased. “You've earned much more than that after all your hard work.”

The viis let a smile creep on her lips. “Very well, Warrior of Darkness. I shall see that you and the Exarch are not disturbed.” Before Gerlind's eyes she took a sip of wine as though to reassure the highlander that she would indeed drink, then led her away through a crowd that parted before guard captain and hero both. Gerlind glanced back to find Thancred watching them leave with a curious look, but Ryne soon had his attention again and the crowds folded back like curtains behind them. They left the dome and crossed a heaving courtyard to the tower's base, another voice crying out to Gerlind every moment it seemed. She smiled back at each, hard as it was, every step another swell in her breast of anger, pain, love, hate, longing, sorrow, she couldn't even count every feeling any more. Lyna stayed at the tower's door and she ascended the stairs alone, grateful for the time to begin sorting her tangled mind and let the water wipe at last some of the alcohol haze from her head.

She found it replaced by wistful memories at the familiar surroundings. There she had fought Scylla, and there Amon. Higher and higher up the stairs she climbed, everything blue crystal trimmed in gold around her, but her thoughts turned to _red_. Red hair and red shirt and one red eye over that adoring smile, all lit by the sun over Mor Dhona years past. G'raha Tia, _Raha_ , walking these halls with her after the fighting was done. Stealing away into a side room while Cid and the Sons of Saint Coinach bustled, finding the briefest moments to indulge one another in between battle and research both. At first he had irritated her a little with his whimsical games, but that had soon faded once they grew comfortable with one another.

Gerlind stopped at the top of a stairwell, only a few more flights to the Ocular. She hung in wistful past a moment, staring off into a corridor and remembering stolen kisses with Raha in a corner somewhere down it. His light skin against her dark, their eyes squeezed closed to better savor one another in the moments they had. She'd only expected it to be a fling, for them to put an end to the Tower's mysteries and then part, another memory, another comfort for her to try and keep herself together.

But then he'd decided the Tower _had_ to be sealed and _he_ had to seal it and he hadn't breathed so much as a _word_ to her before the doors were closing between them.

Her anger burned hot and before she knew it those final flights passed. The Ocular's doors slammed open at a touch more forceful than she meant, sharp enough that she caught the Exarch flinching within before his composure came back. Without the hood he couldn't hide his surprise so easily, but he'd had a century to hone a calm as solid as the crystal walls around them.

“Gerlind, my friend,” he said, staring with two red eyes, just like the day Raha had sealed himself away. But they seemed so much _deeper_ than Raha's, so heavy with time and pain. When the Exarch moved he still winced. “Forgive me for neglecting you so, but Chessamile was quite insistent despite my best efforts.” He chuckled, trying to lighten the mood, but she still seethed in her spot. The highlander looked him up and down like she could cut through his robes, through skin both flesh and crystal, through the _lies_.

“How are you feeling?” Gerlind forced herself to ask.

“Much better for the Tower's energies,” the miqo'te replied with a little smile at the wall. “I cannot pretend that Emet-Selch was the most gracious of hosts, in some ways Lord Vauthry might have been preferable, but it was the distance from the Tower and the effort of summoning your allies that left me in such a state more than anything he did to me.” An uneasy silence rested between them and the Exarch's brow furrowed, his crystal arm pressed against his robe like he tried to hide it from her gaze in shame. It didn't work, only tugging her attention down to it to escape the eyes that were at once familiar and alien. His tail drooped against the back of his thigh.

“You lied to me,” Gerlind said at last. Four simple words that burned as they left her throat.

“I did,” the Exarch replied immediately, bowing his head, fingers fidgeting against his staff. “And as I said, I believe I owe you most of all an apology.” As though that would mend every wrong he had done so simply.

“You lied to me,” she repeated, voice a low growl, dark and hot and furious. The Exarch shrank as she took a step closer, the sounds of celebration lost beneath the roar of pent-up frustration. “I _knew_ it was you from the moment we met that sun, and you let me believe Raha was _lost_.”

“I did,” he repeated with head bowing lower. “I hated to lie to you. I was sure you would see through it-”

“I _did_ ,” Gerlind hissed. Another step closer, another heavy footstep on the crystal floor. “And not content with that, you had Urianger be your _accomplice_ , as though dragging him and the others here when all you really _needed_ was me wasn't enough, _Exarch_.”

It might have hurt him less had she just stabbed her sword through him. He looked pitiful before her rage, shrinking lower, eyes wide with pain like she'd torn the heart from his chest. “I never meant to summon the Scions,” he answered, not a defense, he said it too apologetically for that. “And I endeavored to return them to the Source every moment I could since my _incompetence_ saw them brought here.”

“You still included him in your plan,” the Warrior of Darkness spat. “You still had him pull the wool over my eyes with you while you schemed to have me be your _tool_ and then go on your merry way into the rift!” She was but a few scant paces from him once the sentence burned in the air, hot and furious, him so meek beneath her gaze.

The Exarch, _G'raha_ , dared to meet her gaze. “I truly thought there was no other way, Gerlind. I _wanted_ to believe there was. I wanted to believe you could contain the Light just as Emet-Selch seemed to, but-”

“But _what_?” she barked, making him shiver. “You had me stumble about in the dark while you knew all along where my path would end. With my blade soaked in the last Lightwarden's blood, its poison in my _veins_ , ripe for you to swoop in and kill yourself in my name without me having so much as a _word_ to protest?! Did you _believe_ I _wanted_ that?” The highlander shook in her fury, fists clenched tight until her nails scraped on her palms.

He wilted further, she wished he would try to justify himself, that he would reassert that infuriating calmness and try to argue her down. Where is your anger at Urianger, she wanted him to say, or to have him spout off about the needs of the First and Source combined being far greater than her own. Having him so contrite made her anger a double-edged sword, Raha's agonized expression on his face tearing at her insides like thorns dragged through her innards. “It does not excuse my actions. Nor do I expect your forgiveness for the cruel way in which I treated you,” he whispered. “All I can tell you is that I longed with all my heart to find another way out of the labyrinth in which I found myself, but I dared not risk the path I knew to be safe, not when the futures of both the First and the Source rested on me playing my part. That it meant deceiving you, _using_ you, was unbearable.”

“But you bore it right to the end,” Gerlind growled, right in his face. A finger kept his chin up and the red eyes locked on her blue. “When I cried out your name atop Mt. Gulg while you bade me farewell, glad to die a _hero_ , _glad_ to let me lose you _again_ , _Raha_.” Tears brimmed in his eyes in a bloom of pain and joy both, her anger a blade in his chest, hearing her say his name bringing him to the edge of sobbing once more.

“If there had been any other way-”

“You could have been open with me!” she shouted loud enough that he winced. “You could have shared everything from the start rather than speak in riddles and use me as your _puppet_! Or were you afraid I would stray off the path of your precious plan, _Exarch_? That I wouldn't be a useful little pawn in your games!”

“Never!” Mayhap she took a step too far and found a raw nerve, because power collided with her chest and forced her back a pace. It didn't hurt, like a silk band gently forcing her back more than anything else, but even so his face contorted in shock. “F-forgive me,” he stammered, both of them breathing heavily, his eyes still full of unspent tears. She didn't _want_ to hate him, not when he looked at her with those familiar eyes, not when he did nothing more than grovel in the face of her fury. Again she wished he would put his hood up, put the Exarch's mask back on, stop being _Raha_ -

“What now?” she asked, her voice still sharp. “Now that I exceeded your expectations and left your scheme in a mess, what do you plan to do to make things right? To see my friends safely home?”

The miqo'te's gaze drooped to her feet. “I cannot say my efforts have borne much fruit, as you can doubtless tell by the fact that the Scions remain trapped on the First. But I shall do everything in my power to find a solution. And should you wish absolutely for them to return home and to avenge the wrongs I have put you through,” the tear-filled eyes found hers, “then there is a means by which you could end both problems at a single-”

Before he could finish the sentence Gerlind was in his face again, hands balled in his robes. His staff clattered to the floor with his back pressed to the wall beside his cursed mirror, his eyes wide, his mouth agape an ilm from hers. “No,” she growled. “ _Not again_.”

“Gerlind,” he whimpered, pinned between her and the crystal. She didn't know which was more unyielding. “If it pleases-”

Gerlind didn't know which of her tangled confused feelings it was that made her claim his mouth, but before he could get another word out she did so. His voice became a muffled whine against her lips, silenced by her kiss as G'raha tensed against her in shock. Quickly he relaxed into her, arm wrapping around her back, reciprocating so fervently that he must have dreamed of it every moment he labored to set the stage for her arrival in the First. Her eyes closed and anger slowly yielded to love, lust and longing all. “Raha,” she breathed in the brief gap between kisses. “If you dare say that to me again I'll clap you in irons.” He nodded fervently, gazing at her with watering eyes. A single tear crept down his cheek and she kissed it away before taking his lips again.

“I never dreamed I would be so fortunate again,” he murmured in the kiss's aftermath, their foreheads resting on each other. She was a good way taller than him so she crouched to a little over his level just as she had back in those stolen moments.

“You still have much and more to make up for,” the highlander retorted huskily, the fire in her breast turned from rage to want. Roughly she dragged him with her across the Ocular, smashing through the door into his private chambers. The sight of the room where she learned of his lies for certain almost had had her anger back to its peak, but she forced it down by tugging him deeper. She had explored the rooms after all, lost, confused, bitter, and she remembered where his bed lay looking as though he had it only as a formality. After all, the Tower fed him with such power that she would be surprised if he _needed_ sleep, and even without his _obsession_ with her surely it would be the talk of the Crystarium if the wise, composed Crystal Exarch had taken someone into his bed at any point since his coming.

“Gerlind,” he groaned when she dragged them onto the bed. It was a relic of ancient Allag like much else in the tower, formal and fancy and large, but even her jade-hued perspective thought he had it more because it had already been there than out of any notion of pride. The Exarch was a utilitarian creature and why put a perfectly good bed to waste and insist more humble fare be carried up all those stairs? The sheets were soft and well preserved despite the many many years they had lasted, but she spared little thought for them before she pounced on Raha again. His legs fell apart for her and immediately their hips pressed hard, his cock still flesh and already hard for her.

Lips brushed then devoured each other, hungry beyond measure, needier than ever. She drowned the flames of rage in his touch, fingers on her back so familiar, lips on hers so perfect again. With eyes closed she was back in Mor Dhona in a tent, staying up late with Raha and staring at the Crystal Tower framed by the night sky until at last they gave in to what they both wanted. Clothes all but torn off, hands all over each other as lips joined and stayed locked as long as they could possibly manage. She did it in the present, yanking on his robes without a care for how the fabric tore, if he couldn't cast a spell to mend them with the boundless energy of the heavens coursing through him then he deserved to sit and sew them back together. Cloth fell in pieces from her hands without the slightest protest from him, Gerlind sinking down until her knees hit the floor with his legs beneath her arms. She had him down to rags and smalls in little time, pressing her face to his skin, breathing his scent to see if it was just as she remembered.

It was _close_ , marred by a century of the First and with a cold numb edge to it that she forced herself to ignore with how it made the fire in her loins waver. Her hand found Raha's cock and he groaned, the sound ringing through her, so familiar, his carnal sounds unchanged to her delight. The highlander buried her face in his neck and found a little patch of skin amid crystal, kissing, nipping, suckling while he desperately pawed at her dress strap to send it tumbling over her shoulder.

“Please, Gerlind,” he pleaded, hips bucking and mouth wide with a brush of her hand down his throbbing shaft. Gone were the collected tones, the voice of a leader, replaced with a century's worth of raw collected _want_.

“Undress me,” she growled, retreating to leave him chasing after her. She dared to look, relishing that need in his crimson eyes as he pounced after her like the hunter he was in his bones. Lips found her neck, teeth scraping until she shivered, kisses descending down her dark skin while his hands peeled the dress just ahead. Crystal fingers brushed her shoulder and Gerlind shuddered at that touch, hard and cold and unforgiving, the very opposite of the warm supple digits at her other side. Her breasts fell free with nothing beneath the gown, teasing a little gasp out of his throat at that pleasant surprise while she struggled to keep her own desire alight. It was easier once the crystal left her skin, once he had the dress falling down her legs to pool at her feet. Gerlind stepped out of it and shucked off her shoes with clumsy kicks, left in just plain black panties while Raha hovered at her ample breasts. He lavished them with suckles and licks while she tipped her head back to whine, eyes shuddering shut.

She was back in the tent, she and Raha down to their smalls, his head pressed to her chest while her kisses poured on his ears. In the present she tipped her neck forward to live it out once again, even that cold edge to his scent not enough to deter her or stop her groaning when he suckled one nipple all the way to its peak, then did the same to the other. The highlander crept a hand between them to test her smalls, finding them damp to the touch, aching for him. Gerlind pushed the hand against him and Raha groaned at the touch on his throbbing manhood.

“Oh, wicked white,” he moaned when she took him in hand, in her memory he cried out for the Twelve but still she pressed on. Fingers caught on the hem of his smalls, tugging them down while he clumsily dispensed with the last scraps she had left him elsewhere. His mouth never left her skin, merely creeping down her belly, his hands taking up her work once she could no longer reach to strip him. She fixed her gaze on his face though the crystal arm shone faintly in reflected light to try and drag her away from the lover she knew, veins of icy blue tattooed across his skin as his punishment for daring to tap the power of the gods and break reality itself.

If the gods wished to punish the Exarch, they could wait their turn behind her, she blazed in her mind.

Raha's lips danced from brown skin onto black cloth, tongue sampling her taste from the slick that soaked her panties. Gerlind cried out his name and the miqo'te purred against her sodden core, two more strokes of his tongue leaving her knees weak. He propped himself up with the crystal arm when she glanced, the flesh and blood fingers caressing her thigh tenderly. Teeth carefully scraped until they took a fold of cloth between them, teasing another whine from her throat as he pulled with his mouth alone. Slowly, agonizingly he pulled her smalls away from her sex, strands of arousal snapping as cloth scraped down skin.

“Raha...”

“Oh, Gerlind!” He abandoned the game to just tear her panties right down to the floor with his hands, another brush of crystal on her thigh stabbing a shaft of ice through her reverie. Gerlind grabbed at his head and pressed him to her slit furiously, desperately trying to burn the Exarch's touch away with Raha's warm mouth. He answered her call immediately, tongue parting her and delving deep like he had tasted her just a sun before rather than a century.

“Raha, oh _Twelve_ , yes!” she screamed, her passion ringing off the crystalline walls, eyes tight as she could squeeze them as he brushed over her clit. His tail brushed on her shin up and down, up and down, another warm touch, another thing he had done that night in the tent. He suckled on the nub until she screamed, her hips bucking into his face again and again but he took it without complaint, merely rolling with her thrusts and continuing his ministration.

“Gerlind, my love,” he breathed warm on her folds. “I shall strive to atone for every sin I have done against you, I swear it.” Gerlind reached down and pulled him to his feet by his left arm, pushing him back and back with a kiss that held until they tumbled back into the sheets. Warm skin and cold crystal both pressed on her, the latter like a Coerthas wind to snap her wide awake from slumber, but she pressed on regardless while he turned his lips to her chest once again. Hastily she palmed his cock, a few strokes finding him soaked in pre but even if he hadn't been ready she would have pressed on.

“Raha,” she panted, daring to meet his gaze, forcing herself to focus on the red eyes that had held hers until the Tower's doors slammed shut. She had never thought to ever see them again outside her memories, memories she knew could be fragile as cobwebs after Louisoix's spell had left her entire history like a broken stained glass window in her mind. Gerlind sank onto his length quick enough to leave them both gasping for breath, fingers finding warm patches in his chest to bear her weight as she began to take him.

“Oh, Gerlind, so swift,” the miqo'te whimpered. She leaned over to bury her face in his hair, but where before she could discard the cold sharpness his scent had gained now it seemed to drown out all else. Her pretenses froze and shattered piece by piece, both his arms hooking around her so that the crystal one could punch a hole right through her memories.

“Raha, oh Raha,” she breathed, trying to forget that it was the _Exarch_ she made love, trying to reconcile past and present like he hadn't turned her into a tool and made her dance along to his whims. Like he hadn't lied to her face, like he hadn't made Urianger his accomplice, like he hadn't trapped the Scions on another world for _years_ with no sure way to return them that didn't involve killing him. And hate the Exarch as she might for all he had done, she loved Raha too much to turn her sword on him or let him find some other way to dispose of himself. Hate and love dueled like ice and flame inside her, her arousal slowly quenched regardless of which might win free, but he groaned and cried out beneath her as she continued on instinct more than thought. She rode him mercilessly, furiously, trying to at least wring some satisfaction out of sex more troubled than any she had had before.

Every roll of her hips brushed her against him as her hands slipped onto the sheets, raking patches of crystal on her skin to further smother her want. Starved of intimate touch, Raha, the Exarch, he shuddered and groaned to his end, throbbing madly inside her heat with his eyes closed and her name coming from his lips with every pant. He cried that he loved her and she forced the words back, imagining him the day he had sealed himself in the Tower, clinging to the memory of making love with him in the tent beneath its shadow. Back then they had rutted long into the night, their thirst for each other insatiable, but she knew this reunion would not end the same. The Exarch still shook with pain in between his writhes of pleasure, the gunshot wound through his chest and whatever else Emet-Selch had put him through plain in how his face contorted.

She hated it, hated that he had so poisoned her against Raha, hated that he had used her, hated that she had been desperate enough to try and make love to him regardless.

“Gerlind!” he cried out, tugging at brittle heartstrings as he came inside her just as Raha had that night. Spurt after spurt of pent up seed spilled into her, soaking her in his mercifully warm release, but still the icy crystal tormented her and she felt malms from her own end. She stared down into warm loving eyes, trying to lose herself in them again, but it was hopeless. The man beneath her, inside her wasn't Raha any longer, not with the shadow of his sins weighing heavy on them both.

Gerlind wanted to tell herself that Raha wouldn't have done as the Exarch had done, but then he had decided to seal himself inside the Tower without consulting her, without consulting _anyone_ save his own conscience, hadn't he? Mayhap that was where the Exarch's seeds had been sown, only to be grow cold and manipulative from all that he had experienced in a future where she had died choking on Black Rose.

She continued to ride his softening length even as his hands came to her breasts, trying to tease her climax out of her even though he might as well have tried to grind blood out of his damned crystal arm. Gerlind found bitter tears brimming beneath her eyelids, wishing she could tear either love or hate for this half-crystal half-flesh miqo'te who wore Raha's face from her mind, but if there was a way to do that she didn't know it. Her arousal burned to ashes in confusion, one hand on a breast warm and pleasant and familiar, the other cold and hard and too stained in bitter memories to bring her anything other than pain.

Gerlind forced out a cry, forced herself to shudder, forced herself to fake her orgasm with another cry of Raha's name. The Exarch gasped beneath her in joy and wonder, laying breathless as she finished her performance and slowly dismounted him to stare down. Now she could only look at the brilliant blue crystal, the unnatural blight that wracked the man she had adored like some horrific disease eating him ilm by ilm. His mind turned to crystal too, cold, manipulative, using people for the _greater good_ and not even letting them know the truth of what they were doing.

“I love you,” the Exarch breathed wearily. “Forgive me, Gerlind, but I am all but spent already. If you give me a moment I could call more strength from the Tower-”

Gerlind forced a weak smile and shook her head. “ _Rest_ , before I tie you to the bed and ask Lyna to fetch a sleeping draught.” He nodded just as weakly with a frail little chuckle, his exhaustion finally overcoming even the boundless energy of the heavens to leave his eyes fluttered close. Gerlind stood naked, suddenly cold as she stared unsatisfied across his body. She should stay, she thought, she should lay in his bed and hold him close and smile at him when he woke. That was how it was _supposed_ to go.

In what faerie tale did the brave knight rescue their beloved from the villain's lair, carry them home and bed them only to fake their climax and walk away from the bed when the deed was done? The hero was meant to be there when they woke, they were meant to smile, they were meant to laugh and cheer and celebrate their happy ending.

Gerlind shook her head, too broken to play along, too tired of the charade to indulge. She tucked him in, at least, some tiny gesture that wouldn't soothe his pain when he woke alone. Some bitter part of her relished that as she slipped into his washroom, trying to cleanse his seed from her thighs and slit as quietly as she could before she dried off and dressed. He slumbered the whole time, chest rising and falling, little whimpers passing his lips to try and tug her back, to make her snuggle him tight and soothe him.

She slipped her dress's straps back on her shoulders and hesitated at the door a moment, gazing back at where the Exarch slept. He tossed and turned, her name called across the room in restless sleep to try and pull her to him one last time.

There was no happy ending to be found as Gerlind quietly closed the door and left the Exarch to his dreams, only cold bitterness and warm regret.


End file.
